Primary Objects in Microsoft Word

Paint ECC200 in Microsoft Word Primary Objects

Everything begins with the Microsoft.Sharepoint.Workflow namespace. This is the primary namespace containing all of our objects and is part of Microsoft.Sharepoint.dll. I m not going to pad out the book by listing each and every object, interface, and enumeration in the namespace and then each and every property and method within each object. I ll just cover the main ones that you are more likely to use. If you need information on one of the remaining elements, you can fire up the Object Browser in Visual Studio or peruse the SDK.

Note I likely can t say this enough: this chapter does not contain every member of every class. I cover the

highlights the stuff you are more likely to use. For a deep-dive into all methods, properties, enumerations, and so forth for each and every class, see the SDK reference material.

This class represents a workflow instance. It could be an instance that is currently running or one that completed running (either successfully or resulting in some type of error). The properties and methods of the class give you access to information about the instance as well as the ability to manipulate the instance. Table 10-1 lists the important properties of this class.

Read-only. Returns the SPList object that contains the history entries for this workflow instance. There is also a similar HistoryListId property that returns the GUID for the history list that is also read-only. Read-only. Returns the unique identifier for this workflow instance. Read-only. Returns the current state of the workflow instance. See the SPWorkflowState object for details on this enumeration. Read-only. Returns an indicator as to whether the workflow instance has finished processing. You could also get this information from the InternalState property, although this property returns true for any InternalState value that indicates the workflow is no longer running, i.e., Cancelled, Completed, Expired, FatalError, Orphaned, or Terminated. Read-only. Returns an indicator as to whether this workflow instance is locked. You could also get this information by interrogating the InternalState property and looking for a value of SPWorkflowState.Locked. Read-only. Returns the unique identifier for the SPListitem or SPWeb to which this instance is attached.

Read-only. Returns the unique identifier for the SPList to which this instance is attached. Read-only. Holds a reference to the SPWorkflow association object for this instance. Provides access to all of the information related to the association between this workflow and its parent list. Read-only. Returns an SPListItem object that is the item that this instance of the workflow is attached to. Read-only. Returns an SPList object that is the list this workflow instance is associated with. Read-only. Returns an SPWeb object that is the SPWeb that this workflow instance is executing within. Read-only. Returns a unique identifier for the site collection that this workflow instance is executing within. Read-only. Returns the SPList object that contains the task entries for this workflow instance. There is also a similar TaskListId property that returns the GUID for the task list that is also read-only. Read-only. Returns an object that contains the collection of tasks associated with this workflow instance. Read-only. Returns a unique identifier for the web that this workflow instance is executing within.

There are also a few methods, but only one that you will likely use from the SPWorkflow class. It is described in Table 10-2.

Allows you to programmatically write entries to the history list for this instance. You can specify an event ID, the history outcome, a description, and various other elements in the parameters.

To see this object in action, take a look at Listing 10-1. It contains code that could be placed inside a workflow to log some pertinent details about the workflow to its own history list. Listing 10-1. Working with SPWorkflow Properties in C# //"workflowProperties" is an object of type SPWorkflowActivationProperties SPWorkflow spw = new SPWorkflow(workflowProperties.Item, workflowProperties.WorkflowId); StringBuilder sbLogInfo = new StringBuilder(); sbLogInfo.AppendFormat("Date Created: {0}", spw.Created.ToLongDateString()); sbLogInfo.AppendFormat("Instance ID: {0}", spw.InstanceId.ToString()); sbLogInfo.AppendFormat("Payload Item ID: {0}", spw.ItemGuid.ToString()); sbLogInfo.AppendFormat("List ID: {0}", spw.ListId.ToString()); sbLogInfo.AppendFormat("Web ID: {0}", spw.WebId); spw.CreateHistoryEvent(0, null,workflowProperties.OriginatorUser, "Workflow Information", sbLogInfo.ToString(), string.Empty);